Week 2 Learning Log - Manager Tie-In and Learning Lessons

Manager Tie-In

The concept of a capability audit is one that resonates with me as a senior manager, and as someone who has seen the positive impact that self-assessments can have on an organization. Going through and objectively rating how you feel that your organization performs with acquiring talent, managing accountability, collaborating as a team and managing risk is about as important an exercise I can think of. As I stated in my SHRM discussion board post this week, the only item that concerns me is that this activity is truly completed in an objective fashion. I would go to great lengths to ensure that this objective assessment is the priority. If there is any sense of subjectivity at the conclusion of the capability audit it will be completely undermined. If this means that an outside vendor is engaged, or cross-departmental reviews occur, completing with integrity preserved needs to be prioritized over all.

Learning Lessons

Capability audits themselves were the most relevant and important piece of information covered throughout this week's material and interaction. A company must be able to get to a place where they want to know how they perform internally with the categories covered in a capability audit. Introspection is a way to identify problems, learn from them and put in plans to fix them. This continuum should always be ingrained within a corporation's culture and establishing routines around capability audits could ensure that they are. Another component that is important, beyond simply evaluating through the capability audit lens, is the prioritization of audit sections that are most important to one organization versus the next. Every organization's strategic direction, strengths and areas of opportunity differ. Flexibility is built-in to the capability audit by allowing another layer of prioritization with selecting the two or three most important areas to a firm. This is important regardless of firm performance in those two or three higher impact sections. If the firm is a high performer in those sections, then it is a validation that they are performing well in the most important places. If they are not performing well in them, then they know they need specific and actionable plans to address the areas of the audit most important to the long-term success of the organization.